Book contents
- World-Making Renaissance Women
- World-Making Renaissance Women
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction The Literary Contours of Women’s World-Making
- Part I Early Modern Women Framing the Modern World
- Chapter 1 Erotic Origins: Genesis, the Passion, and Aemilia Lanyer’s Queer Temporality
- Chapter 2 Aphra Behn’s Fiction: Transmission, Editing, and Canonization
- Chapter 3 From Aisling Vision to Irish Queen: The Re-emergence of Gráinne Ní Mháille in Europe’s Revolutionary Period
- Chapter 4 Reframing the Picture: Screening Early Modern Women for Modern Audiences
- Part II Remaking the Literary World
- Part III Connecting the Social Worlds of Religion, Politics, and Philosophy
- Part IV Rethinking Early Modern Types and Stereotypes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 2 - Aphra Behn’s Fiction: Transmission, Editing, and Canonization
from Part I - Early Modern Women Framing the Modern World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2021
- World-Making Renaissance Women
- World-Making Renaissance Women
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction The Literary Contours of Women’s World-Making
- Part I Early Modern Women Framing the Modern World
- Chapter 1 Erotic Origins: Genesis, the Passion, and Aemilia Lanyer’s Queer Temporality
- Chapter 2 Aphra Behn’s Fiction: Transmission, Editing, and Canonization
- Chapter 3 From Aisling Vision to Irish Queen: The Re-emergence of Gráinne Ní Mháille in Europe’s Revolutionary Period
- Chapter 4 Reframing the Picture: Screening Early Modern Women for Modern Audiences
- Part II Remaking the Literary World
- Part III Connecting the Social Worlds of Religion, Politics, and Philosophy
- Part IV Rethinking Early Modern Types and Stereotypes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter stems from my involvement in the new complete edition of Aphra Behn, being published by Cambridge University Press (beginning with vol. 4, ed. Rachel Adcock et al., 2021). I want to look, in particular, at how Behn’s prose fiction was curated and transmitted after her death. But on a slightly broader scale, I also want to explore some ideas about the editorial tradition for Behn’s work in general. During her life, Behn went through waves and troughs of comfort and poverty, success and neglect. By the time of her death in April 1689, the highly successful playwright of the 1670s and early 1680s had fallen on hard times, famously begging her publisher, Jacob Tonson, for a top-up payment for her poetry: “good deare Mr. Tonson, let it be five pound more … I have been without getting so long that I am just upon the point of breaking, especially since a body has no credit at the playhouse as we used to have, fifty or 60 deep.
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- World-Making Renaissance WomenRethinking Early Modern Women's Place in Literature and Culture, pp. 37 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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